


petrichor

by nasa



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nicky and Joe Love Each Other a Lot Ok, Post-Canon, Slow Dancing, idk its a lil angsty but mostly soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28340091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasa/pseuds/nasa
Summary: Afterwards, Joe and Nicky are left alone in the German safehouse with Booker.“Well,” Booker says, from his armchair in the shadowed corner of the living room. “I should probably be going.”But there’s blood on his collar, and his eyes are dark and tired like he hasn’t slept in weeks, and they all know he’s not going anywhere.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 15
Kudos: 270
Collections: The Old Guard Gift Exchange 2020





	petrichor

**Author's Note:**

> written for the old guard gift exchange run by the old guard events! i wasn't going to post on ao3 because its so short, and then I thought, fuck it, I can always delete it later. this is for user @tooshytobethere over on tumblr, who does not have an ao3. I hope you enjoy the fic!

After — after Booker shows up at their doorstep with a sheepish smile and Quynh in tow; after Quynh throws herself, raging, at Andy with a knife; after Andy dodges the blade and catches Quynh in her arms; after they sink, crying, to the floor; after Joe and Nicky try to join in on the cuddle pile; after Quynh takes Nicky’s left eye and then screams at them so loud the neighbors come knocking; after Copley calls off the police; after Andy decides she and Quynh need some space alone together, for a while; after she packs a bag for their Swedish log cabin; after Nile insists on traveling along with them to keep Andy safe; after Quynh, somehow, allows it, and the three of them take off together — after all of that, Joe and Nicky are left alone in the German safehouse with Booker.

“Well,” Booker says, from his armchair in the shadowed corner of the living room. “I should probably be going.”

But there’s blood on his collar, and his eyes are dark and tired like he hasn’t slept in weeks, and they all know he’s not going anywhere.

“Whiskey or vodka?” Joe asks, rising. He points a finger in Booker’s direction without looking at him. “Not asking you.”

“Merlot,” Nicky says. “One of the good years, please.” Joe does his best to fulfill the request, but all the bottles in the cellar are so dusty he can barely read the labels, and he can’t quite remember what the good years were - was it 1892 to 1962 that had such a good rain? 1927 or 1937 that was the drought?

When he comes back upstairs, it looks like nobody’s moved, but a plate of water crackers has appeared in the center of the coffee table. “No cheese?” Joe asks, handing Nicky a long-stemmed glass.

“Nile ate the last of it for breakfast,” Nicky says regretfully. “Dinner will be done soon, anyway.”

“The quiche,” Joe remembers. It was the sort of thing Nicky had been making often lately - healthy, full of vegetables and protein and calcium. Good for the bones, Google had said. _Doesn’t Andy need strong bones?_ Nicky had asked, and added a clump of extra spinach.

“Yes,” Nicky agrees. He knocks back half of his glass in one gulp, then holds it out to Joe. “More, please.”

Joe refills it obligingly, then pours his own. After he’s done, he leaves the bottle in the center of the coffee table beside the crackers, and a spare plastic cup - no need to waste the good glassware. Booker hesitates a moment, glancing between Joe and Nicky, but neither of them will meet his eye and eventually he pushes himself up to go pour himself some. He moves gingerly when he walks, favoring his left side.

“What happened there?” Joe asks, nodding to his leg.

Booker startles, hands fumbling around the bottle, but at least he doesn’t drop it. He doesn’t look up. “It’s nothing,” he says.

Joe waits.

“Quynh had some - anger, to get out,” he says, leaving the bottle and returning to his seat with his cup. “It’s just a phantom.”

A bad injury, then; phantom pain doesn’t come often. She probably cut his leg off, or used explosives. Joe had his leg blown up once, by a landmine in Angola; that phantom pain lasted for weeks. If Joe is being optimistic, he might just think she broke it, or maybe crushed it under something heavy - but he thinks of the way Quynh had hissed at him, the pure fury in her eyes when Joe had reached for her shoulder, and he thinks he’s not feeling very optimistic right now.

_Your fault,_ those eyes had screamed. _Your fault, your fault, your fault._ Joe can hear her saying it now, clear as a bell. He’s been hearing it for the last five hundred years; it should be nothing new.

And yet.

Booker is staring down into his cup. “So,” he says.

Nicky swirls his wine around in his glass like he’s trying to make a whirlpool to drown Booker in. Joe reaches out and picks up a cracker from the coffee table; stale.

“I guess this is where I apologize, then,” Booker says.

“Apologize for what?” Nicky asks, tonelessly.

“For bringing her here,” Booker says. “I’m sorry. I know I put Andy in danger.”

Joe should have expected it, really. Still, he finds himself sighing, eyes falling closed. “Sebastian.”

“What?"

Joe shakes his head as Nicky rises to his feet, setting down his wine glass on the coffee table. “I’m going to go check on the quiche. And get more wine. Merlot?” He waits for Joe’s nod before he disappears back to the kitchen.

Booker clenches his jaw. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“That’s not the problem,” Joe says. “Booker. Come on. You can’t honestly think we’re upset you brought her here.”

“She’s a threat to Andy,” Booker says.

“Andy can handle herself.” Joe shakes his head. “It’s been six months. Are you honestly telling me you _still_ don’t know what he wants from you?”

Booker swallows. He looks grey and pasty, tired in the dim living room light. “I know exactly what he wants from me,” he says. “I’m more confused about you.”

The last time Joe had ben in this safehouse was 1982. Nicky and Andy hadn’t been here - it had just been Joe and Booker, working on diplomatic papers to get East Germans into the country while Nicky and Andy did undercover work behind the Iron Curtain. It had been important work, but it was miserable; Joe hated to be separated from Nicky more than anything else int he world, and he resented the fact that Booker’s German wasn’t good enough for him to take Nicky’s place.

But Booker had never complained. Even when Joe was an absolute ass to him, even when he’d snap over something stupid like a misspelled name on a passport and storm out for a few hours, he’d come home to find Sebastian waiting in the living room, football on the television, a spot left open beside him on the couch.

Sebastian used to know everything about Joe, and Joe thought he could say the same in turn. How jarring, to find out that wasn’t true — that perhaps it never was.

When did Joe’s family become such a mess?

Now, Joe pushes himself up out of his chair “I’m easy, Book. I want what everyone wants.” He lifts the mostly-empty bottle of wine from the coffee table. “Which in this moment means more wine.”

In the kitchen, Nicky is standing in front of the stove, stirring a saucepan of canned peas. “Peas with quiche?” Joe asks with a raised brow.

“I didn’t want to come back in,” Nicky admits, and when Joe passes by him to get to the wine cellar, stops him with a hand on his wrist. “Hey.”

Joe turns to him, setting down the bottle on the counter. “What?”

Nicky’s hand falls to Joe’s waist. “Hey,” he murmurs, but his tone is different, now, and it doesn’t surprise Joe in the slightest when Nicky pulls him back in to dance.

“Nicky,” Joe protests, but it’s halfhearted, and soon he’s falling into step, too; his hands on Nicky’s neck, Nicky’s temple against Joe’s. There’s no music but Joe finds the beat easily enough anyway, steady as Nicky’s heartbeat under his palm. They speed up, they slow down. Nicky tucks his nose against Joe’s cheek and Joe sighs into the whorl of Nicky’s ear. The peas bubbling in the background, the oven fan humming. Joe lets Nicky pull him in soft, singular circles, and the knot in Joe’s chest shivers and splinters and starts to fall apart until finally, they come to a stop in front of the fridge, and Nicky presses a kiss to Joe’s hairline, and the last dredges of it up and disappears.

Joe feels human again.

He sags forward into Nicky’s shoulder, tucking his face into Nicky’s neck. “How do you do that?” he mumbles, words half-muffled by Nicky’s skin.

Nicky strokes big hands down his back. “Do what?”

Joe sighs. “You make everything seem so manageable.”

Joe can feel the way that Nicky’s smiling, knows what the expression is on his face without needing to look up. He never needs to look; if he went blind tomorrow, he would still know every expression on Nicky’s face for the rest of their lives, because he _knows_ Nicky - just as Nicky knows him. Whatever happens, however much of Joe’s life and Joe’s family is falling apart, that will never change.

“It is,” Nicky says. “With you.”

Joe kisses him. He tastes like mushy peas and wine. They kiss and kiss and only break apart when the oven timer goes off. “The quiche,” Nicky says.

Half of Joe is tempted to tell him to let it burn, but he’s hungry, and anyway, it would be a waste of Nicky’s lovely cooking. “I’ll get some more wine,” he says, stepping back.

“Get a Riesling,” Nicky says. “There should be one under the crate of Pinot Noir.”

Joe could point out that he knows very well what type of wine goes with quiche, but he just says, “Yes, habibi.”

“And I will fetch our asshole brother,” Nicky says, and Joe’s smile widens.

“Yes, habibi,” he says again, and ducks into the dusty cellar, secure in the knowledge that Nicky will be there when he comes back up.


End file.
